30,300 workers furloughed in Warrington

A TOTAL of 30,300 workers in Warrington were placed on furlough under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) in the period up to June 30 – the last day before flexible furloughing was introduced.

This has been revealed by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) – although they say the statistics are experimental and subject to revision.
A total of 104,600 Warrington workers were eligible for furlough under CJRS – which means the take-up in the borough was 29 per cent, compared with 31.6 for the North West as a whole.
The government announced CJRS on March 20. It supports employers through the COVID-19 period.
Employers are able to claim CJRS support for employees furloughed from March 1

Up to June 30, CJRS provided employers with financial support of up to 80 per cent of their employees’ salary, capped at £2,500 per month per employee.
Employers could also claim Employer National Insurance and minimum automatic enrolment pension contributions. CJRS changed from July 1.
Nationally, 9.6 million employments have been furloughed through CJRS (32 per cent of eligible employments) for at least part of the period between March to June. These claims have been made by 1.16 million employers, with 61 per cent of eligible employers claiming.
• The accommodation and food services sector has had the highest furlough rate of 77 per cent
• The wholesale and retail sector furloughed the highest number of employments, at more than 1.9 million
• There has been broad consistency in furlough rates across the nations of the UK The West Midlands region of England has the highest take-up rate of 34 per cent against the UK average of 32 per cent.
• Men have been furloughed at a higher rate than women: 34 per cent and 29 per cent respectively
• The number of employments furloughed peaked at 8.9 million on May 8, then reduced to 6.8 million by June 30. This peak is lower than the 9.6 million mentioned above since furloughed staff have been furloughed for different periods – and not all at the same time.